March 24 is World Tuberculosis Day. Despite significant effort by the global health community to detect and treat tuberculosis (TB), the number of cases is still rising. To control TB and save lives, it is vital to improve detection and treatment in a comprehensive and sustainable way and to strengthen the systems that support detection and treatment. In more than 30 countries, MSH is building partnerships across sectors—internationally, nationally, and locally—to integrate TB services with HIV services and primary health care.

Afghanistan has the second highest maternal death rate in the world, according to the United Nations, with high fertility and low contraception use being significant factors. However, an article recently published by the World Health Organization describes how the Accelerating Contraceptive Use (ACU) project, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was able to significantly increase contraceptive use by involving religious leaders in reaching their communities with contraceptives and messages about the benefits of family planning.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published an article on an MSH project in Afghanistan that was able to significantly increase contraceptive use by working closely with communities and religious leaders.Afghanistan has the second highest maternal death rate in the world, according to the United Nations, with high fertility and low contraception use being significant factors. “Achieving Success with Family Planning in Rural Afghanistan,” describes how together with the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health and local nongovernmental organizations, MSH’s Accele

In a November 29, 2009, Washington Post, Op-Ed, MSH Senior Technical Advisor, William Newbrander, and Leonard Rubenstein, a visiting scholar with the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, write about expanding health care in Afghanistan.For the full article

Twenty MSH experts on tuberculosis (TB) from 15 countries showcased the latest global experience and methodologies at the 40th Union Conference on Lung Health, held December 3-7 2009, in Cancun, Mexico.

Girls at Enjil Comprehensive Health Center, Herat Province. Photo by Julie O'Brien.Building on a strong history of health-system strengthening in Afghanistan, MSH is working with its partners to cut by half the high number of child deaths over the next four years. At the end of Taliban rule, Afghanistan registered one of the worst child health statistics in the world: one child in four died before reaching age five.

It has been over six decades since tuberculosis (TB) was deemed a treatable and curable disease. Yet it still remains one of the leading causes of death across the world, killing more than 1.5 million people per year. Despite myths about its danger, misinformation about its breadth, and ignorance about its true burden on the world’s population, TB remains one of the deadliest epidemics in the world. From low detection rates to drug-resistant strains to the continued threat of co-infection with HIV, we need to recognize just how important this fight is.

There is growing recognition that health plays a key role in stabilizing and rebuilding the world’s most troubled nations—those that have been ravaged by years of conflict, disease, poverty, and natural disasters.In times of crisis, health systems are battered by violence, poor governance, lack of funding, and loss of infrastructure. Where people no longer have access to adequate health services, mortality and morbidity rates increase dramatically.At MSH we believe that, despite the challenges, societies can move forward and health can be made a top priority.

Through the Global Fund Technical Support Project, MSH will support Global Fund grantees around the world to build their organizational and human capacity for improved prevention, care, and treatment of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.CAMBRIDGE, MA —The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has selected Management Sciences for Health (MSH) to lead the Global Fund Technical Support (GFTS) Project, an initiative that provides technical assistance to grantees of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria who are working on the prevention and treatment of these di